but did not do it, and ought to be very thankful to him for throwing his new light upon their sayings, "which are hard to be understood."

Mrs. M. It is sad to think what they will learn at Sackville College who are under such a teacher.

Ed. A teacher who, I believe, was himself brought up evangelically. I have been told that he is a son of the good Cornelius Neale, whose Memoir perhaps some of you have read.

Mrs. M. I have. Can he be the son of that good man!
Emm. What! of the author of the "Emblems"!

Ed. Yes, he inherits his father's literary, but not his doctrinal tastes.

Emm. I think Mr. Neale has now had sufficient attention. Shall we look at some other book? Dr. Layard's, for example? Mrs. M. You mean his DISCOVERIES IN NINEVEH AND BABYLON.*

Emm. Yes, mamma. It is rather a bulky volume, full of pictures, maps and plans; but by no means dull or dry.

Aug. With his genial temperament and good will, it would be very difficult for him to be otherwise than attractive. Something of his own disposition must peep out in his narrative.

Ed. Yes; he is not only desirous to effect the object of his expedition, but of enjoying his enterprise, and picking up all the knowledge of men and things he can get by the way. He certainly manages as very few Eastern travellers do, to throw himself into the habits of the people, cultivate their friendship, and make himself not simply at home, but really one of them while he is with them. What with chiefs and workmen, he often had a troublesome task to achieve, and needed great tact and unfailing good humour.

Mrs. M. What was the object of this second expedition?

Aug. To resume the excavations of Nineveh. He wanted to carry out a very extensive plan of research, but the Museum authorities could not afford it. After journeying with several companions along a road, which in the by-gone times of Turkish prosperity, had been a great highway from central Armenia to Bagdad; feasting with almost obsolete Turkish nobles; letting his horse's feet slip down chimnies of Armenian peasants, whose houses are underground; exploring miserable monasteries; admiring "well preserved mausoleums, glowing in the rays of the sun," the adventurous "treasure-seeker," as Arabs conjecture him to be, reached the valleys of Assyria.

Emm. And then, I suppose he began to dig.

London: Murray.

Aug. Or directed the digging of his workmen. Near Mosul he resumed the explorations.

Mrs. M. Were there any important results?

Aug. Many; and among them not the least were the discoveries made at the ruined palace of Kouyunjik. The façade of the south-east side of the palace, forming apparently the grand entrance to the edifice, was discovered. Ten majestic bulls,

with six gigantic human figures, were here grouped. The length of the whole was 180 feet. The bas-reliefs represented the conquest of a country well watered and wooded, bearing some resemblance to the plains of Babylonia; and on a slab was sculptured the representation of a hanging garden. The great bulls bore inscriptions, recording the history of six years of the reign of Sennacherib, supposed by Layard to be the builder of this palace. Colonel Rawlinson has made out that these inscriptions describe the wars of Sennacherib against the cities of Palestine. They also refer to other Old Testament histories. One inscription is devoted to the expedition against Hezekiah, relating how a tribute was demanded, and how spoil was carried to Nineveh. This agrees with the Bible narrative. In some sculptures the Jewish physiognomy is easily detected.

Mrs. M. Did they stay all the time at Mosul ?

Aug. No. They went across the desert to the banks of the river Khabour. The party consisted of a hundred persons, guided and guarded by a Bedouin chief, called Sheik Suttum, who figures largely in Dr. Layard's narrative.

Emm. What was found at the Khabour?

Aug. Some ruins were met with at Arban, near this river. They resembled the Nineveh sculptures, but were rude and imperfect in comparison. Returning to Mosul, and resuming the delving there, two colossal bas-reliefs of Dagon, the fish-god, came to light. Two small chambers opening into each other had also been excavated. These were conjectured to have been repositories for records, as many tablets, some whole, some broken, were found in them. The inscriptions were sometimes so small as to require a magnifying glass to aid in reading them. They contained decrees signed by the son of Esar-haddon, and general histories of the kingdom.

Ed. These records of the Assyrian Empire must be very important and valuable. We shall wait with great anxiety for their publication, as they will be likely to throw much light on ancient eastern life.

Aug. Dr. Layard must have worked industriously, for I find that he opened seventy-one halls, chambers, and passages in the ruined palace of Sennacherib, and that nearly two miles of bas

relief were uncovered. Yet much remains unexplored, says the learned digger.

Mrs. M. Did Dr. Layard escape illness?

Aug. No. He was obliged, by an attack of fever, to leave the burning plains of Assyria. He visited the Nestorian valleys, and the interior of Kurdistan. He describes the last named

district as in a lawless, unsettled condition. The primitive Christians, known as the Nestorians, appear to have suffered great cruelties.

Ed. At the secret instigation of the Jesuits, it is strongly believed.

Aug. The thriving villages, which Dr. Layard had seen some time before, were now only black, forsaken ruins. In four other villages 770 persons had been slain.

Emm. Where else did the Doctor go?

Aug. To the ruins of Babylon and to Bagdad, sailing down the Tigris, on a raft, from Mosul.

Emm. If we may believe the "Arabian Nights" Bagdad must be a splendid place.

Aug. Was, perhaps. Tyranny, fever, and malaria, according to our explorer, have half destroyed it. All traces of the magnificent structures which the caliphs built have long vanished. There was found an enormous subterraneous passage, built of large, square bricks, all bearing Nebuchadnezzar's name.

Mrs. M. What does he say about Babylon ?

Aug. All the surrounding country is desolate, covered by a net-work of ancient watercourses and canals, now completely dry. Long lines of palm trees grow in the midst of the ancient city. Shapeless mounds of brickwork, broken fragments of glass and marble cover the ground; the very soil is composed of fragments broken yet smaller. The party took up their abode in a ruined palace.

Mrs. M. Babylon is indeed fallen!-and its destruction is a type of the approaching desolation of Rome.

Aug. The principal mound was called the Birs Nimroud; from which, for three miles, extended a line of smaller mounds, each one the remains of some mighty edifice!

Emm. How high is the Birs Nimroud?

Aug. 198 feet; and on it is a mass of brickwork, 87 feet high by 28 broad.

Mrs. M. What is this ruin supposed to be?

Aug. The Tower of Babel; or, others say, the Temple of

Belus.

Ed. Some have supposed it to be the site of Borsippa, the high place of Chaldean worship.

Aug. It is a remarkable fact, that this building has been rent

from the top to the bottom; and the character of the bricks seems to indicate the action of lightning. This ruin Dr. Layard explored, but found nothing of any importance. In another mound, however, in the vicinity of Babylon, he found some extraordinary relics.

Ed. What were these?

Aug. Eight bowls of terra cotta, round the inside of which were inscriptions in Chaldee; but in characters hitherto unknown in Europe. They are known now; for Mr. Ellis, of the Museum, persevered till he ascertained that they were the work of the Jews during their Babylonian captivity. All of them are charms, or incantations.

Ed. The inscriptions which are accumulating in our Museum will doubtless before long give us fuller and more accurate notions of Assyria than we now possess.

Aug. We may confidently expect it. There is one fact I should like to mention before we turn from this deeply interesting volume; that is, that the dry, barren and desolate country termed the Desert, both in Mesopotamia and to the west of the Euphrates, was once thickly populated, and artificially watered, and the soil now entirely barren, was then highly productive.

Emm. Now from a large book to a little one; and from the elaborate narration of a world-honoured doctor, to the first attempt in literature of a little girl of fifteen summers.

Aug. What, Emmeline, do you mean to say that a child of fifteen wrote that smart looking little book, MY CHILD-LIFE! * Emm. Pray treat the unknown authoress with more respect. Young ladies at fifteen are sometimes anxious to be considered "quite grown up." I do not suppose Miss Margaret Josephine will thank you for calling her a child.

Aug. Ah, well, I do not expect any gratitude. But the book itself does not mention her age.

I

Ed. Emmeline learned that from me. A note came with the book, mentioning the fact of her very youthful age. thought, before forming a critical judgment, I should like to be assured that it was an honest, unassisted work; and, having called on the publisher, learned that this little volume is so entirely her own production that the young writer even corrected the proof sheets herself, which will account for some mistakes that an older eye would at once have detected in the revision.

Emm. So it is quite her own. What do you think of it? Old L. You did not address that question to me, I believe, Emmeline, but I mean to answer it. I have been half asleep

* London: Rees, Aldine Chambers.

while you have been getting dusty among Dr. Layard's ruins; but I must wake up, to speak out plainly against such unheard of things as girls of fifteen writing books. In my days, young lady, such girls would have been content with their sampler, or reading Mrs. Trimmer's Histories. Really, the aspiring conceit of the present young people is intolerable. What will become of the future generation? They will write scientific treatises as soon as they can crawl, I suppose.

Ed. We will hope they will not begin quite so early. But really, my dear lady, you must be a little tolerant to our young authoress. Where God has bestowed talent it is not wrong for it to appear, or to be cultivated early. Miss Josephine certainly has considerable power as a writer. Her descriptions are natural and life-like, and you may easily imagine, although I understand this is not quite a veritable history, that she really is sketching the last ten years of her "child life." I do not mean to say that this little book is without faults, and some of them rather grave ones, but, under the circumstances, it would be very ungracious to take much notice of them. There are proofs enough that this juvenile candidate for literary laurels will, if she takes pains, write carefully, prune severely, and not be in any hurry to rush into print, attain no mean position among older authoresses.

Mrs. M. There is, however, a serious deficiency in this book, which I must mention, because I regret it so sincerely. I do not refer to any deficiency of talent, but of acquaintance with evangelical truth. I should have thought that any child religiously brought up, when describing such very sorrowful scenes as those here narrated, would naturally and eagerly try to show how faith in Christ, and love to Him, can give a sustaining and cheering power to the heart and mind. So far as her book indicates, this interesting little authoress seems to be quite a stranger to the sweet story of a Saviour's love, and to the precious delight of belonging to his fold; and yet the religion of the "Child Jesus" ought to be invested with a peculiar charm for a youthful mind.

Ed. I must join with you in deploring this. I felt what you express very painfully while perusing this touching narrative.

Mrs. M. Let us hope that our remarks, if they should happen to reach the ears of our unknown young friend, may be received kindly by her, as they point out "one thing needful,” which we earnestly trust will be found both in her future secret experiences, and in her visible mental revealings.